Co-pending U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 188,047, filed Sept. 17, 1980, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,608, entitled "The Kinetic Extruder--A Dry Pulverized Solid Material Pump", assigned to the same assignee as the present patent application, discloses a method and apparatus for the continuous feeding of pulverized coal to a coal gasification reactor. One of the problems encountered in the coal gasification process is the feeding of pulverized coal from a high pressure storage hopper to the vessel in which the reaction takes place. This is traditionally done by a gas transport system, in which the coal is moved by gas transport to a high pressure coal accumulator. The carrier gas for gas transport is compressed by a conventional compressor. At the high pressure coal accumulator, to save energy, part of the compressed gas is fed back. This system is overly complex and is not as conservative of energy as desired.